


Conversations

by Ishmael



Category: Marvel (Comics), Ms. Marvel (Comics), New X-Men: Academy X, Young Avengers
Genre: Advice, Arguing, Awkward Conversations, Coming Out, Comment Fic, Communication Failure, Dialogue Heavy, Emotional Baggage, Exes, Gen, Phone Calls & Telephones, Post-Break Up
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-12
Updated: 2016-04-30
Packaged: 2018-04-09 01:17:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4328253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ishmael/pseuds/Ishmael
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Marvel characters talking and having feelings without a lot of superheroing going on. That's it.</p><p>1: David and Noriko at New Year's<br/>2: Bruno calls a mystery number he got from Loki<br/>3: Tommy does a terrible job of telling Eli what went down with Patri-not</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. David & Noriko

**Author's Note:**

> This is me trying to up my game by writing gen conversations to wrap my head around characters. Future chapters will have other Marvel duos as I see which ones get my fic brain moving.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I couldn't stop thinking about how Noriko was at the New Years' party (she's on the cover of 15) and how awkward it'd be for her and David to talk. As far as I'm aware they haven't had much to say to each other since they broke up and went their separate ways. So I wrote it because I found their breakup and its motivations really interesting. Unfortunately both Noriko and David are terrible to each other here.

David sees familiar blue hair in the light of the crowd. He knew she'd be here, he's the one who made the calls to people she still interacts with, but he'd hoped they could pass by each other and leave it at that. No such luck. She looks up from where she's grabbing punch and he's standing there with a quiche in hand like an idiot. Their eyes meet and he's sure his face mirrors hers—debating if they should pretend they never saw each other or face the awkward and talk.

Noriko puts down the punch ladle and moves forward. David isn't enough of an asshole to run away. She stands just outside of kicking range. He wonders if she's doing on purpose. She's still beautiful, the lines of her face starker and more elegant now that she's escaping teenagerdom, but the spark between them is long dead. The bitterness and regret he feels is more reflexive habit than active antipathy.

"Hey." She looks at him then away, drinking her punch to excuse not having anything else to add.

"Hey," he says with all the cool distance he can muster.

"It's been awhile." Noriko doesn't visibly cringe but he knows she is inside. Her voice is a little too high as she says, "So, you've found a new team."

"Yeah." He doesn't say anything else which is mean and he knows it, so when she looks close to bursting he adds. "It's nice to be on a team again." That isn't really helping on the meanness scale but it's true without the reopening-old-wounds angle. He'd missed working with people who gave a damn; he'd missed making a difference beyond offering advice to hapless ninjas.

A familiar laugh pierces the music. David turns to see Tommy dancing with Kate, something ridiculous that's all wild flailing meant to make Kate join in. She throws her head back so her body's a long line of laughter. They look good together. David feels strangely bereft. He'd never stopped to consider himself and Tommy then that split second of kiss and rejection showed it and just as quickly stole it away again. He never even had the chance to believe it could work out before it was gone. It shouldn't make him angry but it _does_ and standing in front of his ex-girlfriend makes it worse.

Maybe having a disastrous love life is his new superpower.

"Is that—uh, Wiccan's brother?" Her brows are furrowed and she frowns a little in thought. "I don't remember seeing him during the fight."

"He wasn't there. He'd been kidnapped and we—" It's egotistical given how little he did but David says it anyway because he needs a win, " _I_ —got him back maybe half an hour ago."

"In the middle of the party?" Her expression lightens with approval, eyebrows shooting up. She looks more like herself now.

It feels good to impress her and he knows he needs to rein it in. Showing off to exes is a stupid impulse. If he keeps it up he'll end up mentioning the kiss and that's not where he wants the conversation to go. "Yeah. It's a long story and involved no great feats on my part. Not this last bit, anyway. I'm just glad he's back."

Tommy twirls Kate, almost bumps into Laurie and switches to dance with her. No sign of trauma at being captured by the Patriot-thing at all. It's uncanny. It's enviable. It's _appealing_ and it's a problem.

He adds, "It's because of him I'm on the team. Indirectly. We were coworkers, he vanished, you know how it goes."

"Yeah." There it is—the flicker in her eyes that means she's going to say it.

He could ask her about what she's doing these days, make it a proper conversation and delay it awhile. But this was never meant to be a reconnection. He knew this was coming as soon as she approached and while he wants to hear it he really, _really_ doesn't want to dredge up old memories. A stupid thing to wish while talking to an ex-girlfriend. His first love. His first a lot of things until she ended their relationship by kissing Hellion.

"It was dumb to think you'd ever have any trouble being a hero without your powers. I was a jerk and I'm sorry. I know it's too late to say it, _way_ too late. But I didn't want to leave it unsaid." She's looking through him not at him, hands clenched into fists. This is for her more than him. "I'm sorry. I was scared and I never should've ended it like that."

David exhales. Her words don't do much of anything. No clenched chest, no fury, just the faint bitter taste of regret and the strangeness of not caring when he used to _so much_. He'd been heartbroken when he ended the relationship, _furious_ that she'd done it out of some warped sense of protecting him. But it'd been subsumed by how full his head had become once he regained his memories and the mutant cause. And now his heart must be too busy chasing after guys he can't have to look back. It was so much easier when he was too busy for relationships. "I won't say I forgive you, but—" He looks at Tommy and Kate, looks at Billy and Teddy. "I'm good with where I am now and what you did was part of it. I'm more _me_ now. At this point what you did doesn't matter."

It's a little bit of a lie but it's true. He's done a lot since then, things that have nothing to do with her. She's of a past age when he was a mutant and straight and that's years gone.

"Ah," she says in a tone he really, really doesn't like. "I heard about that."

"What did you hear?" he says with all the chilly flatness of Emma Frost. Absorbing knowledge of powers is great but it's the little things that _really_ pay off, like facial expressions and tones of voice.

"Pixie heard you talking to Wiccan, and Anole saw you on the hill—" her eyes glance behind him where he's sure Tommy is dancing.

This. _This_ is why it took a life-or-death situation for him to come out instead of stewing in his hopeless crush forever: the gossip, the reevaluations of old relationships, the explaining and conjecture and assumptions.

"Noriko," he begins before she cuts him off.

"David, you know I'm not—I'm not _judging you._ I don't have a problem with it."

He finds his anger and grabs hold of it because he wants to be angry at _somebody_ tonight even if it's misdirected. "First off, I don't know what you heard or what you're assuming so I'll cut through the bullshit. I'm bi. I've been bi but I never said anything about it until recently. And whatever I am has _absolutely nothing_ to do with you or our previous relationship."

She looks like she wants to scream at him which feels more normal than the awkward tentativeness from before.

"And for the record I turned Loki down." He says because he got past the disaster of Teddy and clearly needs a new way to fuck up. Whatever Anole saw this is the story that'll get around, so that's something. Tommy won't have to deal with any fallout.

"What?" she boggles. Her brown eyes are wide and her face is twisted in confusion and a little disgust; there was a time when he found the way her nose scrunches up hilarious and kinda cute.

This isn't how it should go. She's making an effort and he's being an asshole and they'll never be ok but they could bury the hatchet at least. "Look, Noriko—we're done. And that sucked for both of us but I don't have any hard feelings about it anymore. I haven't for awhile. We aren't kids anymore and what's done is do –"

There's a yank on his arm. David spins around in confusion to see Tommy is dragging him away with enough speed and force he's in the middle of the dance floor before he escapes. "What? The hell, I was in the middle of talking—"

"Kate said you were making The Ex Face and needed rescued. So go ahead and thank me for being your knight in shining spandex." Tommy bows a little, one silver hand to his chest.

"You interrupted—"

"An awkward ex conversation," Kate finishes with a sour sympathetic smile, surely thinking about Noh-Varr. "You would've talked your way around to establishing you're still broken up with nothing accomplished but how you both hated every minute of the conversation. So dance with us instead and skip all that talking. It wasn't helping either of you. If you're good now you'll still be good later."

He should go over and finish talking to Noriko anyway. But Kate grabs one arm and Tommy the other and they start twirling him in a circle. It's so ridiculous he laughs and gives in. "Alright, alright."

So he dances with Kate, and Tommy, and America, and even Noh and Teddy in turns.

When he meets Noriko's gaze again in the crowd she nods.

He nods back and watches her go until Tommy tries to dip him _again_ and he's drawn into a half-scuffle half-dance. By the time he escapes she's out of sight.

It's closure enough.

Hopefully it means the end of awful surprise kisses for everyone.


	2. Bruno & David

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set somewhere between Ms Marvel issue 12 and 13, spoilers for 12. I have a headcanon that Loki hands out David's number to anyone he thinks might need it.  
> I'm not sure I pulled off Bruno here but I wanted to get it out rather than obsess over it.

Bruno stares at the business card, turns it over and stares again. It _looks_ normal, smells normal, and none of the probably-bullshit tests he's tried on it show it has any kind of magic in it. But given the source it could be anything. Hipster Viking isn't like any of the information Bruno could find on Loki--who mostly looks like a creepy old guy in a green onsie, not a Harry Styles cosplayer. There was an edit war on his Heropedia page between two users who argued it needed revision given recent events against a flurry of other editors; demands for proof never came outside of a deleted selfie from yamblr. Despite one of the pro-Loki duo being a superuser in the end the tone was lightened and ambiguity allowed but it still clearly listed Loki as bad news.

Bruno tilts the card so the shiny gold script catches the light. _In case of emergency, call this number. Don't worry, it's not mine ;)_

"Creep," Bruno informs the card. Winks definitely look creepier without a tiny yellow guy emoji to take away the _Lokiness_ of it. He slumps onto his bed and sighs. The phone number looks normal enough, it's probably not a sex line or business or anything. If he waits to use it in an emergency who knows what'd happen? It makes sense to check it out first.

But what if it's only good so many times?

"He's an Asgardian not a djinn," Bruno mutters into his sleeve. "These aren't wishes." _Probably._

Who is he kidding, this is for Kamala. She takes enough risks as it is and he can't afford to add any more.

Bruno unlocks his phone and starts dialing, punching the area code so fast he has to go back and fix it. He gets the entire number in and checks it against the card. Checks it again. Checks it one last time and hits call before he can think better of it.

He hangs up on the first ring.

"I'm a wuss," He tells the action figure of the Hulk. He thinks of Kamala, running around out there with barely a clue and hell of a lot more bravery than him. Bruno pulls up the number from his recent calls and hits the dial button.

It rings once. Twice. Bruno feels his whole body go tight on the third ring. On the fourth he's almost relieved that he'll go to voicemail and maybe find out more about the mystery number.

"Hello?" comes a slightly annoyed baritone that is definitely not Loki. "Who is this?"

Bruno shoots upright in bed somewhere between terror and excitement.

"Uhh," Bruno says as his brain refuses to cooperate and say anything useful. "I'm, uh, I got this number—was given this number, and I was calling to see if it worked, and uh." He sounds like an idiot, he sounds like a _total moron_ what if his number gets blocked and he can never call this number again when Kamala actually needs help?

"Who gave you this number?" The definitely annoyed voice asks. Whoever it is isn't from New York going by the accent. Too bad that's all Bruno can get outside of "maybe under thirty."

"Hipster Viking," Bruno says like a genius. Damn it he should've practiced this first! "I mean—"

" _Loki_. I should've known."

 _He's using the going-to-hang-up voice. He's going to hang up! Say something!_ "He—he gave me this number to call for help. And I had to know if you really would help before she actually needs help and maybe you could tell me more about Loki? Since he left wards all over our school and I don't know if they're protection wards like he promised and—"

"It's alright," the guy says in a way that isn't stereotypical soothing but is noticeably calmer than before. It's a voice that sounds knowing and like everything is under control. "I'm not hanging up on you."

"Are you psychic?" Bruno blurts out like an _idiot_. "Sorry—"

"Not psychic. I don't have powers, not anymore, but I've got a lot of experience in a lot of things so I can make educated guesses. Like how I know you're a teenager in New Jersey and part of a very new hero team or helping out a newly turned hero. Most likely Inhuman, given the timing."

It takes a lot of effort not to shout "SHERLOCK IS REAL AND I'M TALKING TO HIM!" Bruno is a little proud he manages it. What he does say is, "Wow." He's mostly used to Kamala's powers but seeing something that's all brains instead of visual flash is new and weird.

"If Loki was helping you then the help was genuine. Loki is changing; he's not the same person anymore. It might've been for his benefit somehow but if he put up wards to protect your school they'll protect it as promised."

There's a few beats of silence as Bruno is reassured Loki hasn't cursed their school. "Can you give me advice on how to help her? I don't have any powers, I'm—"

"The Hawkeyes don't have any powers either. Doesn't stop them from doing what they do. My advice is to be prepared for anything. Have plans, have alternates when those fail, have alternates for the alternates. Stay flexible and keep it simple. Find what you're good at, use it, and be willing to admit when things are beyond your ability to handle."

Bruno tells him about the phone call distress signal, and that leads to a discussion of ways to expand the code, how to react to each one, what free phone apps might help, and before he knows it it's an hour later, he has three pages full of hastily scrawled notes, and he's immensely grateful to Loki.

"Thank you," Bruno says with maybe a little too much gushing. But how can he _not_ it was like the best tutoring session ever? Every time Bruno felt stupid or overwhelmed there'd be an anecdote about how ninjas are terrible at taking advice or how magic beings will freak out over magic words even without power behind them and it'd be okay again. Bruno wishes his teachers were half as good as this guy.

"You've got a good handle on it already. All I did was provide more information."

This is his first real talk with a hero who's been around the block. There are so many questions he wants to ask. "Is it worth it?" Is the one that pops out unbidden. He can't help it. The more he reads about heroes the more he worries for Kamala's safety because there are so many stories with abrupt, violent ends.

"Absolutely. Best decision I ever made was putting the suit back on. Even when it's hard, helping people and being part of something—"

"You're _still_ on the phone?" Interrupts a muffled voice in the background, all exasperation and Jersey accent. "I thought you were done with call-a-nerd duties?"

Bruno misses most of the response but he does hear, "—not the same. He's new."

There's a brief exchange where all Bruno can make out is "babysitter" and "fresh meat" which gets a reply that definitely contains "shut up."

It's strangely embarrassing, hearing such an easy exchange between teammates (friends?) when it'd been all business before. Bruno's a little envious and it doesn't even make sense when he's friends with Kamala and that's awesome enough even if it's not exactly what he'd like the most. He doesn't know anything about this guy. Maybe he has a terrible unrequited love too. Bruno wishes a little he were the kind of guy who'd be willing to ask this knowing stranger for relationship advice.

"Sorry about that." His mysterious know-it-all sounds like he never left, his voice full of regret that sounds genuine. "I have to go. Good luck. If you need help again, call me."

Before Bruno can ask for a name the call is over. He puts the number in his phone as "Guy Who Knows Everything" and starts working on contingency plans and using every app he can on his phone to make helping Kamala easier.


	3. Tommy & Eli

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The idea for this came up when I was editing [WYCO](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4693841) but it didn't fit with what I needed. Since I liked the idea I ended up writing it anyway and made it gen enough to fit with this series. Lots of implied relationships, lots of talking around feelings, some mildly offensive comments because Tommy is Tommy.

The doorbell rings. Since he's the only one home, Eli opens the door, expecting to see the UPS guy with the package that's supposed to arrive today.

Instead he sees Tommy, hands jammed into his pockets and crooked smile on his face.

"Couldn't you have texted me first?" Eli asks while he figures out if he's angry or not.

"I did."

Eli's phone chirps from his pocket.

"See? That's me. I forgot how slow they can be."

Eli pulls his phone out—sure enough, there it is.

→Need to talk there soon

Above it Eli sees the texts he sent months ago when he found out Tommy called him while he'd had the flu. Texts Tommy never answered. "Took you long enough to get back to me."

Tommy laughs and smiles but Eli is sure something isn't right. "I've got a good excuse."

Eli steps out of the doorway and motions him inside. Whatever this is it shouldn't be in public. "Come on." Instead of taking him to the kitchen table or the living room like the handful of other times Tommy has been over, Eli heads for his room.

"Are you giving me a tour of the house?" Tommy bats his lashes in a way that should be ridiculous but isn't. Eli has always assumed the flirting was a joke designed to piss him off but something—the time and distance since they last spoke, the expression on Tommy's face—makes him wonder if it's something else. Not that it matters. He isn't interested and Tommy won't pull anything, so inviting him into the bedroom isn't a big deal.

He wonders what he, Kate, and Tommy would be like now if the team had never broken up.

Tommy smiles, leaning in way too close. "Is this your bedroom? I don't know if I'm ready for—"

"Cut it out," Eli wheels on Tommy, blocking off his room. He gets up in Tommy's face on his terms, his heart pounding hard in his chest. Which has nothing to do with their proximity and everything to do with his simmering anger. "You want to talk? We'll talk. No games." Eli steps out of the way and none-too-gently shoves Tommy in the room before him.

Tommy deflates. He shrinks to somebody pale, small, tired to the bone. Eli can't remember Tommy _ever_ looking like this—not fresh out of prison or with Cassie and Jonas dead in front of him. He isn't looking over every inch of Eli's room or making fun of his posters or rolling around on his bed to be annoying. He's standing in the middle of the floor looking almost melancholy.

"Sit," Eli gestures to the computer chair, the only place to sit that isn't the bed.

Tommy sits without complaint. Eli's dread looms larger. He sits on the bed and asks, "What happened?"

"Did Mrs B ever say why I called?" _Of course_ Tommy answers a question with a question.

"No." She hadn't told him until a couple days later when he was no longer puking and sleeping all day. "She said you'd asked if she knew where I was. What was that about?"

Tommy drums his fingers on the desk. "It's a long story. Maybe I should've let David talk to you; he's good at laying everything out 'cause he's a nerd."

"Who's David?"

"Ex-coworker, new teammate. Filling in our quota of team black guy and smartass like Loki filled in for both the morally ambiguous and wears green slots while I was gone and America is the new girl."

Eli tries to count to ten in his head to calm down. He gets to five before he bursts out, " _What_?"

"The team's back together. Which I didn't know about because I'd been kidnapped by some creepy inhuman thing wearing your old getup and Billy didn't know until David tracked him down and told him but it's kinda his fault because he tried to bring back Teddy's mom and got an interdimensional parasite instead and she'd teamed up with the thing that took me. Oh, and Loki was on the team but he was a kid and then he became a teenager because magic but then he admitted he killed himself or something and left because he was sad about it." Tommy's drumming his fingers so fast they're a blur.

"You're making less sense than before." Eli wonders if Tommy does it on purpose or is so badly out-of-touch he has no understanding of how other people think. It's hard not to get angry but this annoying Tommy isn't the normal annoying Tommy. This is a different, means-something-is-wrong annoying.

Tommy goes on anyway. "Mother's defeated, nobody knows what's going on with the thing in your costume except maybe David but David isn't talking about it even though he must know something because he kissed it to get me back and that worked."

The finger-drumming is so fast Eli can't hear the individual beats anymore, so he smacks Tommy's hand flat onto the desk before he dents it. Tommy looks up at him, startled. "If you want me to understand you're gonna have to slow down."

The hand under his twitches. "I don't want to slow down."

"Then what the hell are you talking to me for?" He knows the answer though he can't quite believe it: Tommy came to him for help, for sense, for solace. For things Eli could never give Kate because she didn't want them and has no desire to give to Tommy.

"I don't know," Tommy says and he sounds almost _lost_. "I can trust a guy who can't stand me to be honest with me."

"Motherfucker." Eli squeezes the bridge of his nose. He lightens the pressure on Tommy's hand so he's not pushing it down so much as resting his on top. It's not holding hands but it's close. If Nate had told Eli of a future when he'd comfort Tommy Eli would've told Not-Yet-Kang he was crazy and should stop being a lying shithead. "Ok, let's take this one thing at a time."

"Billy's a magical messiah. David kissed Teddy and kissed me, though Teddy was on purpose and I was an accident. Teddy and Billy broke up for a while but they're back together. Marvel Boy is on the team and dated Kate but they broke up because he's an asshole and she might be turning lesbian. Oh, and Loki was on the team while I was gone.

Eli wishes he had a tape recorder or something so he could take the time to parse out the infodump later. Cliff notes would make talking to Tommy a hell of a lot easier. "That isn't one thing at a time. That's throwing details at me like rice at a wedding."

"Weddings do bubbles now. Rice is bad for birds or something." His hand twitches. "Billy and Teddy talked about it for their wedding."

Eli increases the pressure on Tommy's hand. He hopes it hurts but knowing his luck it probably comes off as reassuring. Is this what Tommy looks like when he's scared? It might be.

Tommy brightens, but it's as fake as bad fluorescent lighting. "Even if you wanted to come back you probably couldn't be on the team anymore since we're way gayer now. I think I'm infected."

"Infected?" Of course Tommy would talk about being gay like it's a disease. He'd almost forgotten how easily Tommy can piss him off. He can believe Billy is a messiah since he puts up with Tommy's bullshit without strangling him.

"You sound like David." Tommy rolls his eyes.

" _Who the hell is David_?" Eli isn't yelling. Barely. "You've mentioned him ten times already and have yet to say who he is."

"But I did. Coworker, new teammate, brainy black guy." Tommy counts off on the fingers of his free hand. "Oh, and he wears a lot of yellow."

If Eli had hair to pull, he would. Maybe yanking Tommy's would help. "So he's an X-man?"

"Formerly. Lost his powers because of my magic-mom but still has the knowledge."

Eli searches his memory of other black X-people in their age group active a few years ago. Somebody held at Avengers Academy after Utopia went down, maybe? "Prodigy?"

"Yeah!" Tommy snaps his fingers and points them at Eli like guns. It's utterly ridiculous. "You know him?"

"Nothing more than vague memories of a Heropedia page." Eli shrugs. "So what, is he your boyfriend or something?"

He said it as a joke but the full-body twitch Tommy has as a result is shock, not laughter. "What the fuck, did you lose your brain when you quit? The team's gayer, not me. And the kiss was an accident."

"An _accident._ " Eli can't keep the dubious tone out of his voice.

"He made out with the thing that kidnapped me and it brought me back by switching our bodies. I already told you about it. Are you even listening to me?"

"Why—"

"It was a weird time, okay? I still don't know most of what went down."

Given that Tommy _still_ hasn't pulled his hand away from Eli's, _weird_ is definitely a stand-in for _traumatic_. Not that Tommy would ever admit something like that. He'd rather go back to juvie than admit he's ever had a real feeling in his life. No point in trying to get more details, not when it's going to get even more confusing every time Tommy tries to explain. "Clearly."

Tommy finally wriggles his hand free, tucking it into his torso and curling into himself.

"Look—" Eli sighs. "I don't know what's going on with you. You don't want to tell me anything that makes sense. I still have to suppress the desire to punch you every time you open your mouth."

There's no comeback which might as well be a neon sign saying Tommy is indeed fucked up.

"But I know that no matter what crazy hero drama is going down, you're ok. You're not future Kang the Conqueror, you're just obnoxious." Eli sighs. "And since you keep bringing him up you should talk to David, not me. I'm not your stand-in black guy."

Tommy jabs a finger in his direction. "See? That. That's why I'm talking to you. You think I'm a shithead and will call me on it and say why. None of that passive-aggressive fuckery Billy does."

"Not your therapist either." He should've slammed the door in Tommy's face. Not that it would've stopped Tommy, he'd just phase through. But it's a satisfying thought. "Why are you talking to me? Why not Kate?" Eli doesn't succeed at keeping the bitterness out of his voice.

"What's your deal? She _tried_ with you. I was the replaceable makeout side piece." Tommy sounds just as bitter, which Eli wasn't expecting.

"Isn't that what you want?"

"Whatever, like I said, she's a lesbian now or something. I didn't come here to talk about Kate."

"Please, tell me what you're here for. Not like I've asked multiple times already. Why did you come out here to ruin—"

"BECAUSE SOME ASSHOLE _THING_ WEARING YOUR OLD GETUP STOLE MONTHS OF MY LIFE!" Tommy bellows, rising to his feet so fast the chair falls over. "Billy's big fucking destiny meant that I got kidnapped and he didn't even know about it until David told him. I was an _afterthought_." Tommy bites off his words and looks away. He rights the chair and slumps into it in a blurry second. "I needed to see you and remember the real Patriot. You suck but you're not an interdimensional nightmare horror-thing."

Eli stares at Tommy, struck silent with the realization that Tommy _cares_. About _him_. Even though 90% of their interactions have been yelling or insulting each other. In the disaster zone of Tommy's life somehow he decided Eli was the best person to come to after getting kidnapped by somebody wearing his old outfit. Eli feels the excitement, the need to _know_ rising in him.

Is this what Tommy was counting on? Eli's pride at defending his brand and curiosity dragging him back into the mess of superheroing so he can fix whatever the fuck is wrong with Tommy?

No. Not his problem. He remembers how far he took it when he wanted to be a hero. He can't let himself do that again.

He looks at Tommy, whose stare is somewhere between _intense_ and _crazed,_ and feels completely inadequate. Tommy's an asshole but Eli hates letting him down. He swallows the lump in his throat. "What—"

"Forget it." Tommy rises to his feet in a burst of energy, the chair groaning noisily against the floor. He's out the door before Eli can get in another word.

Eli is half out of his chair, staring open-mouthed like a moron.

He feels _bereft_.

And angry. Lots of angry. That self-righteous little prick invited himself over, dumped drama all over, and bolted before anything useful could be done about it. Not that Eli wanted to do anything, it's not his problem.

 _I got out of that life for a reason,_ he reminds himself over and over. He works out. He texts his girlfriend.

But even as he makes plans with her the nagging feeling of something lost remains.


End file.
